The last of the ancients, and one who forms a link between the classical
period of literature and that of the middle ages, in which he was a
favourite author, is Boethius, a man of fine genius, and interesting
both from his character and his death. It is well known that after
filling the dignities of Consul and Senator in the court of Theodoric,
he fell a victim to the jealousy of a sovereign, from whose memory, in
many respects glorious, the stain of that blood has never been effaced.
The _Consolation of Philosophy_, the chief work of Boethius, was written
in his prison. Few books are more striking from the circumstances of
their production. Last of the classic writers, in style not impure,
though displaying too lavishly that poetic exuberance which had
distinguished the two or three preceding centuries, in elevation of
sentiment equal to any of the philosophers, and mingling a Christian
sanctity with their lessons, he speaks from his prison in the swan-like
tones of dying eloquence. The philosophy that consoled him in bonds, was
soon required in the sufferings of a cruel death. Quenched in his blood,
the lamp he had trimmed with a skilful hand gave no more light; the
language of Tully and Virgil soon ceased to be spoken; and many ages
were to pass away, before learned diligence restored its purity, and the
union of genius with imitation taught a few modern writers to surpass in
eloquence the Latinity of Boethius. --(Hallam’s _Literature of Europe_,
i. 2, 4th ed. 1854.)
The Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could
have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy orphan, he
inherited the patrimony and honours of the Anician family, a name
ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age; and the
appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from a
race of consuls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the
Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the Republic. In
the youth of Boethius the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a
Virgil is now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the
professors of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in
their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the
erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent
curiosity; and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen laborious
years in the schools of Athens, which were supported by the zeal, the
learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his disciples. The reason and
piety of their Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion of
mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the Academy, but he
imbibed the spirit, and imitated the method, of his dead and living
masters, who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtle sense of
Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato.
After his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his
friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a palace
of ivory and [glass] to prosecute the same studies. The Church was
edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed against the Arian,
the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was
explained or exposed in a formal treatise by the _indifference_ of three
distinct though consubstantial persons. For the benefit of his Latin
readers, his genius submitted to teach the first elements of the arts
and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras,
the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy
of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle, with the
commentary of Porphyry, were translated and illustrated by the
indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he alone was esteemed
capable of describing the wonders of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock, or
a sphere which represented the motions of the planets. From these
abstruse speculations, Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he
rose to the social duties of public and private life: the indigent were
relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might
compare to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in
the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was felt and
rewarded by a discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius was adorned
with the titles of consul and patrician, and his talents were usefully
employed in the important station of master of the offices.
Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and West, his two sons were
created, in their tender youth, the consuls of the same year. On the
memorable day of their inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from
their palace to the forum amidst the applause of the senate and people;
and their joyful father, the true Consul of Rome, after pronouncing an
oration in the praise of his royal benefactor, distributed a triumphal
largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous in his fame and fortunes,
in his public honours and private alliances, in the cultivation of
science and the consciousness of virtue, Boethius might have been styled
happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the
last term of the life of man.
A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his time, might
be insensible to the common allurements of ambition, the thirst of gold
and employment. And some credit may be due to the asseveration of
Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the divine Plato, who enjoins
every virtuous citizen to rescue the state from the usurpation of vice
and ignorance. For the integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the
memory of his country. His authority had restrained the pride and
oppression of the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered
Paulianus from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often
relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were exhausted
by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had courage to oppose
the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by conquest, excited by avarice,
and, as he complains, encouraged by impunity. In these honourable
contests his spirit soared above the consideration of danger, and
perhaps of prudence; and we may learn from the example of Cato, that a
character of pure and inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by
prejudice, to be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities
with public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the
infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society; and the mildest
form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance and gratitude,
must be insupportable to the free spirit of a Roman patriot. But the
favour and fidelity of Boethius declined in just proportion with the
public happiness; and an unworthy colleague was imposed to divide and
control the power of the master of the offices. In the last gloomy
season of Theodoric, he indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his
master had only power over his life, he stood without arms and without
fear against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to
believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with his own. The
Senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the presumption of
_hoping_, as it was said, the liberty of Rome.
“If Albinus be criminal,” exclaimed the orator, “the senate and myself
are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent, Albinus is equally
entitled to the protection of the laws.” These laws might not have
punished the simple and barren wish of an unattainable blessing; but
they would have shown less indulgence to the rash confession of
Boethius, that, had he known of a conspiracy, the tyrant never should.
The advocate of Albinus was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the
guilt of his client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery)
was affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to deliver
Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honourable rank, perhaps of
infamous reputation, attested the treasonable designs of the Roman
patrician. Yet his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by
Theodoric of the means of justification, and rigorously confined in the
tower of Pavia, while the senate, at the distance of five hundred miles,
pronounced a sentence of confiscation and death against the most
illustrious of its members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult
science of a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and
magic. A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate was condemned as
criminal by the trembling voices of the senators themselves; and their
ingratitude deserved the wish or prediction of Boethius, that, after
him, none should be found guilty of the same offence.
While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the
sentence or the stroke of death, he composed in the tower of Pavia the
_Consolation of Philosophy_; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure
of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the
barbarism of the times and the situation of the author. The celestial
guide, whom he had so long invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended
to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his
wounds her salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity
and his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the inconstancy
of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious condition of her
gifts; experience had satisfied him of their real value; he had enjoyed
them without guilt; he might resign them without a sigh, and calmly
disdain the impotent malice of his enemies, who had left him happiness,
since they had left him virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended to
heaven in search of the SUPREME GOOD; explored the metaphysical
labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and free-will, of time
and eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect
attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and
physical government. Such topics of consolation, so obvious, so vague,
or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature.
Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labour of thought;
and the sage who could artfully combine in the same work the various
riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, must already have possessed
the intrepid calmness which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of
evils, was at length determined by the ministers of death, who executed,
and perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord
was fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened till his
eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be discovered
in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he expired. But his
genius survived to diffuse a ray of knowledge over the darkest ages of
the Latin world; the writings of the philosopher were translated by the
most glorious of the English kings, and the third emperor of the name of
Otho removed to a more honourable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint,
who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honours of martyrdom
and the fame of miracles. In the last hours of Boethius, he derived some
comfort from the safety of his two sons, of his wife, and of his
father-in-law, the venerable Symmachus. But the grief of Symmachus was
indiscreet, and perhaps disrespectful; he had presumed to lament, he
might dare to revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in
chains from Rome to the palace of Ravenna; and the suspicions of
Theodoric could only be appeased by the blood of an innocent and aged
senator.--Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, 1838, vol. vii. p. 45-52 (without
the notes).